Well, I've moved to a new position at Conectiva. I'm now
working as a consultant of the business departament. It is
a nice place to work, although there are a lot to do.

In this new position, beside other duties, I present some
lectures about Linux. This is mostly to introduce people to
Linux ( and Linux business ). Techies and their managers
are being more and more curious about Linux, it's history,
projects, evolution and (obvious) the gains it can bring to
their business.

I'm up to present a lecture about Linux history and I went
to Linux Doc
projects development page to harvest some information
about the project histories. Unfortunatelly most of them
does not have a single page about their history. I think
it would be very nice to have some historical info about
those projects, alongwith some milestones reached. Pehaps
this is due to the fact that my mother was a Social
Scientist and History teacher.

I will try to send some emails suggesting them to create
such page. The text should be something like :

Sorry if this is not the correct email to get in touch
with XXXXXXXXXXXX project.

I work at Conectiva, a major distributor of Linux in
Brazil and Latin America, and eventually I have the
opportunity to present a lecture about Linux.

One of the aspects I like to present is the amazing number
of plataforms Linux was ported for. I'm up to present a
lecture here in a brazillian event and I would like to
present the linux port projects in a timeline. I could get
some project history to support my presentation, but others
projects don't have an (obvious) link to the project history
and, pehaps, some milestones reached.

May I suggest you, or some project member, to provide this
kind of information ? It doesn't need to be a very
extensive text (can be if desired :)), but the startup date,
some milestone date and, if easy or feasible, the number of
project members at some time (e.g.: project aniversary). I
guess it would be nice to have this info for Linux advocates
like myself.

I've presented that case at Brasília. When I was there I
found that others companies representatives are introducing
their companies. Ooops !! Time to change my presentation,
but I was up to present the case, how can I ? No pain, no
gain ? I don't know, but it was pain for sure. Any way I
tryed to use the cas a an example of well succeeded effort
of Conectiva to help big companies to solve their problems.

People are very curious about what Linux, or Free Sofware
for that matter, can do for them. They listen things about
wonders of Free Software that (they think) are not
compatible with the possible price tag. But is seems (to me
at least;)) that those guys are starting to acquire
confidence. It is clear to me the fast increase of
interest and adoption of solutions based in FreeSoftware.

...............

There was the case of the (new) first virus for Linux. All
started with a message of a friend pointing to an arcticle
(in portuguese) published by IDG
NOW!. He asked me if it was possible. Well my answer
was published by Linux
Aliança and by .BR,
both in portuguese. What amazes me more is the fact that
people still think that Linux should be used and treated as
Windows. It is funny ! And more, there are still people
that think tha having it's source code open
for anyone is a security threat. Ha ! Can anyone point to
me where to get the source code of the more infected
operating system ?

...............

I was invited to present a chat conference about "Ethics on
the Net". Some ideas about the new social contract we're
building in our new comunity. It was at UMeet 2000. It was an
interesting experience. I learned with it, and next time
I will reduce my presentation to provide more time for
discussions.

These have been very busy months. I'm still trying to
keep pace with the huge change in my life. Being a
geophysicist at a governamental company made me not prepared
for the demands of this new life. Obviously most of my
time is applied in learning new things about Linux
and about a Linux company. Being one of the biggest Linux
company in the world, Conectiva has many challenges to
face, and this is a new and exciting experience to me.

Besides that there is a new experience in talk to people
in congresses and shows about Linux. It is amazing how
big is the ignorance of people about Linux, and I'm not
talking about laypeople, I'm talking about very experienced
IT guys ! They know a lot about what those big vendors
brochures say. They know every single buzzword that the
biggies print there, although most of them seems to have
no idea about what they mean. :) Ok, I agree that many
times those buzzwords doesn't have no new technical
meaning, but they use them as an IT top tech frontier. 8b>

It is very funny to listen them repeating the same kind of
FUD that was showed many times that no more applies to
Linux world. Can you figure people still saying that
Linux has no support ? Or that, provided that Linux is
Open Source and anyone can hack it, you have thousands of
different and incompatible versions of it ? I could
imagine this kind of stuff some time ago, but today we are
being the "hype of the jour", and so many things are being
written about Linux that I can hardly understand this. I
use to say that these people become up to date through
those press releases from big vendors.

I'm up to present a case in an event of governamental
agencies and companies. Being this case a governamental
petroleum company ( Yeap ! That same one where I used to
be a geophysicist ;)) experience, I hope people get
a bit interested.

Cheers !

Non luctari, ludare !

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